Eye of the Storm
by x Hemlock x
Summary: Remus is having a bad day. A war rages, the sky is in tears, and he's just stepped in a puddle and lost his shoe.


**Eye of the Storm**

The storm raged over the Welsh countryside, downing trees and flooding rivers. The weather had been horrendous all week, but it had worsened steadily as the month of March neared its end. A clap of thunder rang out overhead, masking a sharp crack that sounded when a man wearing worn robes appeared out of thin air.

The previously dry Remus Lupin swore loudly as icy drops of water hit his skin and ran down the collar of his cloak, soaking him to the bone in seconds.

Drawing his wand, he cast the Impervius Charm to avoid getting any wetter, but it did nothing to protect him from the gusts that had him staggering sideways as he walked. He bowed his head against the wind and struggled to stay on the path. Still muttering under his breath, he hurried down the dirt lane, past the protective enchantments, toward the small cottage nestled in the valley below.

The wind roared, and the sky rumbled as rain pounded against the ground and the trees that flanked the path swayed and groaned. He could barely hear his thoughts over the rolls of thunder.

As Remus neared his destination, the sky turned impossibly darker, veering from overcast grey to pitch black until it became easy to forget that it was only midday. Although his stomach was quick to remind him of that fact—its growl could almost rival the boom of thunder. With the growing darkness stealing his sight and his mind wandering elsewhere, he walked into a patch of mud. His foot slid out from beneath him, and his stomach dropped. His arms wheeled in a desperate attempt to regain his balance, which he managed only barely, stepping back into a puddle to do so.

Mud and water seeped into his left shoe, soaking into his sock and freezing his toes. Remus's heavy sigh was lost in the wind as it continued to roar past, oblivious to his misfortune. He tried to take a step forward, but the wet ground refused to release its hold on his foot, sucking it down further into its frigid depths.

Manic laughter bubbled up from Remus's throat; a grating rasp drowned out by the wind. His head fell back. No longer willing to fight the elements, he let them wash over him. The Impervius Charm faded, and the rain bit into his skin, each drop hitting like an icy pinprick against his face. The wind whipped through his cloak, dishevelled his hair, and stung his eyes as the claps of thunder echoed in his ears, piercing through his skull until a dull throb beat against his temples.

This was his life—caught in a thunderstorm, laughing like a madman as the sky beat down on him. It seemed apt, he supposed, that with everything else in his life falling apart around him, the weather should do the same.

The laughter caught in his throat like a ball of lead and turned into a broken sob. The wind could no longer be blamed for the stinging in his eyes as warm tears burned down his frozen cheeks.

This was his life—fighting a war for the losing side and knowing that no matter the outcome, he wouldn't win. The situation was lose-lose for him. It always had been.

On the one hand, sat darkness with Lord Voldemort and his ever-growing forces, promising safety in return for servitude. On the other, stood the light with Harry and the ever-shrinking Order of the Phoenix, watching its members drop like flies with every passing day. Neither side had a place for someone like Remus.

They said they did now, when he was needed and useful, but he knew what to expect when this war ended. Voldemort held as much esteem for werewolves as one would a rabid flea. So long as Fenrir Greyback and the rest of them remained useful to him, he would keep them by his side, but when that was no longer true, he would do to them what he did to all those he considered beneath him. Alternatively, if by some miracle the Order pulled off this war, Remus knew exactly what awaited him because it was what had happened the last time: the life of an outsider. Unemployable. Feared. Hated. Ostracised. A grim future whichever way he looked at it.

And he'd managed to drag someone else into it with him.

The bitter thought clawed at his mind as the cottage door swung open. A pool of light flooded the muddy path, not quite reaching Remus and his sunken foot.

"Remus?" said Dora, shouting to be heard over the wind. "What are you doing?"

_Dragging you down with me._

He shook off the voice in his head and forced his wits back into some semblance of order. "Nothing. I'll be there in a moment."

Dora stayed in the doorway, nothing more than a blurred outline in the light as she waited for him. She always waited for him.

Taking a deep breath, Remus heaved his foot from the muddy puddle. The muscles in his thighs twitched, and he winced, but throwing his weight into it and wiggling his ankle did the trick. He stumbled back, freed from the earth's clutches and poised to congratulate himself on that one small victory when he moved his left foot and mud oozed between his toes.

A glance downwards revealed his once white, now brown sock sinking into the mud, his shoe nowhere to be seen. His gaze fell on the puddle he'd been standing in seconds ago.

Closing his eyes, he counted to ten—once, and then twice. He wanted this day to end, to go inside, grab something to eat, and sleep until tomorrow proved more worthwhile. But he couldn't do that because he couldn't afford to lose that one lousy shoe. The gale ripped a sigh from his lips as he returned to the puddle, left foot squelching as he went. He crouched beside the pool of murky water, rolled up his sleeve, and dove his hand into the frigid rainwater.

It took a moment, but his numb fingers eventually brushed against the worn leather of his shoe. He grabbed hold of it and yanked hard enough that when it came away with little resistance, he ended up sprawled in the mud, his prize clutched in his hand as he stared up at the sky, wondering if his luck could get any worse.

"Are you just going to lie there?" asked Dora. She no longer needed to shout because she now stood right next to him.

He shot to his feet fast enough to give himself whiplash and nearly lost his footing again. "You shouldn't be out here."

Her shrug was lost in the darkness. "You looked like you might need a hand."

"The baby—"

"There's plenty of padding between it and the cold." She took Remus by the hand and dragged him toward the house.

The light seeping from the narrow entrance hall fell upon Dora's distended belly, and Remus's brain stuttered at the sight as it always did, throwing up warning signs and denials. How could he have done this?

Falling in love with Dora had been bad enough. Marrying her had been cruel. But this was unforgivable. Loving a known werewolf had turned her into an outcast, but at least she'd been aware that would happen and had chosen it. Their child had no such choice. This life would be forced on him. He would have to grow up with a father he would be ashamed of, and if, Merlin forbid, Remus had passed his condition on to the child …

More often than not, the regret was too heavy to bear. Remus would never forgive himself for what he had done to Dora and that unborn child. If his punishment was to endure all the misfortune in the world, he figured he was getting off easy.

Dora glanced up at him. One look at his face had her shoulders tensing and her lips thinning into a hard line. She stepped through the threshold, and Remus followed her into the cottage. As he closed the door behind them, the noise from outside became muffled so suddenly that it made him think that he might have gone deaf.

"Molly came over this morning," said Dora, shattering the impression. "She made stew."

Remus helped Dora out of her heavy cloak and hung it on the coat rack. His own would need to be washed. "She didn't have to do that."

"Try telling her that." She ran a hand through her short hair, the pink strands splotched with brown, and Remus caught sight of the redness in her tired eyes.

The news of her father's death had reached them at the beginning of the week, just as the weather had turned for the worst. Dora had spent the better part of the last few days crying.

Remus had known before leaving the house this morning that he should have stayed home. Another fruitless reconnaissance mission wasn't worth his time, not when Dora needed him. But she'd been the one pushing him out the door, telling him that his frantic pacing was driving her mad. He should have known better than to believe that she wanted to be alone.

He cupped her face, wiping away the dried tear tracks from her cheeks.

The tension left her shoulders, and she leaned into his touch, a soft breath brushing past her lips as she closed her eyes. He stepped closer, intent on closing the distance, but the fattest Kneazle Remus had ever known chose that moment to waddle into the hall and park himself between them. The cat stared up at Remus with big yellow eyes and yowled as the bells on his bright green collar jingled.

Dora's eyes flagged open, and she glanced down at the Kneazle with a fondness one reserved for long-time pets. The beast yowled again and pawed at Remus's leg.

With a sigh and a smile, Remus bent to scratch the ruff of his neck. "Hello, Elbert."

Elbert was an exceptional pet in Remus's opinion, not only because he was roughly the size and shape of a large watermelon, but also because he was the first animal Remus had met in a long time that hadn't shied away from him. Animals were more perceptive than humans, and being in the same room as a werewolf sent most of them into a panicked frenzy. Not Elbert, though. He was either braver than most or more stupid.

"You need to wash up," said Dora, heading towards the kitchen. "Be quick about it. I'm starving."

Remus rose from his crouch. "You don't have to wait for me."

She didn't answer, just threw him a look over her shoulder and disappeared around the corner.

A shiver ran through him as he walked to the other side of the small house, the thin walls doing little to keep out the chill. He cast a Heating Charm as he entered the bathroom, but even that didn't do much good. After fighting his way out of his cloak and robes, bashing his elbow against the wall twice, and bumping his hip against the sharp corner of the sink, he finally stepped under the tepid spray of water. He would have preferred a bath, a long one with bubbles, a book, and Dora leaning back against him, but his growling stomach wouldn't allow it.

He washed away the mud and the cold, forcing his limbs into a brisk efficiency even as his sore muscles begged for more time beneath the steady trickle of water.

Elbert waited for him outside the bathroom, tripping him up by weaving between Remus's legs. Remus threw his clothes into the laundry hamper, grabbed a clean set, and slipped them on, all the while struggling to manoeuvrer around Elbert who insisted on rubbing himself against Remus's shins.

Outside, the storm continued to rage. The thunder boomed, and the cottage windows rattled. Elbert hissed and tried to scale Remus's leg, his sharp claws digging into Remus's skin through the thin fabric of his robes. Remus picked the Kneazle up, almost throwing his back out beneath the creature's weight.

"You're a menace. Did you know that?" he asked as he kissed the top of the furry head.

Elbert only purred in response.

Remus's sleeve caught on the cat's collar, one of the fake emeralds snagging in the fabric. He screwed his nose up and pursed his lips, trying to get his hand at the right angle to free himself without tearing yet another hole in his robes or damaging the collar.

Dora had made the collar by hand while she'd been a student at Hogwarts. It was a hideous thing—bright green and bedazzled with fake emeralds and shiny little bells. Remus hated it, but Dora took great pride in it, and even Elbert threw a fit whenever it was removed. According to Dora, the colour of the collar and the placement of the fake crystals were what made Elbert such a friendly and accepting creature. She'd explained her reasoning to Remus once—something to do with green being the colour of compassion and harmony—but he'd struggled to understand it given that Kneazles didn't see colours the same way people did.

A sharp tug later, and Remus's sleeve came away from the collar. It didn't rip the fabric, but one of the little green gems did scratch along his skin hard enough for blood to pearl at the surface.

He watched the insignificant trickle with a slow shake of his head and glanced over at Elbert. "I'm having a very bad day."

The Kneazle looked at him with lantern-like eyes that, just for a moment, seemed to hold all the understanding and wisdom in the world. Then he stuck his tongue up his nose, and the illusion fell. Remus chuckled and gave Elbert a scratch, carefully avoiding that awful collar. He carried the Kneazle into the kitchen where Dora had managed to heave herself onto the counter. She sat cross-legged, digging into a packet of crackers, resting atop her belly. The sight of her drew a smile from Remus.

"Couldn't wait, huh?"

"I could, but this one"—she prodded her stomach—"couldn't."

Remus set Elbert down by his food bowl, grabbed the cat food from the cupboard, and filled the bowl to the brim. Elbert purred and dug in.

"You know you're the reason he's so fat, right?" asked Dora, waving a cracker in Remus's direction.

Remus snatched the cracker from her fingers and bit into it. "He was fat before we met."

"No, he was chubby," she said, grabbing another cracker for herself, "a little round around the middle. Now, he is gargantuan, and it is entirely your fault."

His gaze slid to her belly, and the joke slid out of its own accord. "I guess I have that effect."

Dora froze, waiting for the shoe to drop, for him to start apologising as he had done so often that even he had lost track or for him to retreat in on himself or, worse yet, leave again—that one event that they both refused to talk about. But he did none of those things. Instead, he smiled. If it was a little strained around the edges, she didn't mention it.

"I could turn that into a really dirty joke," she said with a tentative twitch of her lips, and Remus realised that it had been a while since he'd seen her smile. "But I won't because there are young ears present."

His eyes fell to her belly again, and he swallowed hard.

The storm was directly overhead now, and the house shook with every clap of thunder. Dust fell from the ceiling as old beams shifted for the first time in decades. Lightning flashed through the window, brighter than the light within the house, creating odd shadows against the walls that disappeared the next second.

Elbert ran to hide beneath one of the cabinets, but Remus's gaze kept going back to that swollen tummy.

At the next boom of thunder, he took a step toward Dora, and then another and another until he stood directly in front of her. Dora didn't move a muscle while Remus's brain whirred. She barely dared to breathe when he lifted his fingers and let them hover over her stomach. Remus dropped his hand, and Dora let out the breath she'd been holding. It fanned against Remus's face as he touched her baby bump for the first time. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to avoid it during the first eight months of the pregnancy, although he did recall jumping like a startled cat a couple of times when he'd come close.

"Here," she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. She covered his hand with hers and guided it down a bit over her bright green robes. The colour clashed with her pink hair but matched Elbert's collar.

It was the colour of spring, he thought as he remembered one of his first Divination classes from his third year. It was a sign of safety, renewal, and growth, but most importantly, it symbolised hope and the future. Remus's future rested right in front of him, a future he had always craved but never dared to dream of, yet there she sat with green robes and pink hair and a baby—their baby.

Dora pressed his hand against the side of her stomach, and they waited.

Remus knew what to expect. He wasn't an idiot. But when he felt that gentle jolt of a baby's kick, barely detectable beneath his fingers, he looked sharply up at Dora, and she guffawed. Her laughter filled the room, drowning out the storm, and, Merlin, how he had missed that sound. He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, and she turned her head to lay a kiss on his hand. Her blazing grin warmed him better than any spell ever could.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked, the hand still on her belly brushing the crumbs from her robes.

She untangled her legs and slid gingerly from the counter. Remus took a step back to give her room. "Starving. It feels like I'm eating for a whole Quidditch team and not just for two."

"I was under the impression that you always ate for a whole Quidditch team," Remus commented lightly, stepping out of reach first. "I figured you were where Elbert got that habit from."

Upon hearing his name, the Kneazle ran from beneath the cabinet, green bells tinkling as he launched himself at Remus like a furry, thirteen-kilo cannonball. Remus caught him, groaning beneath the weight as Elbert clung to his chest, ears down and eyes wide, staring out the window at the storm.

Dora snorted as she readjusted the cat's collar and scratched his back. "Big baby."

"It's good practice," said Remus.

He smiled down at her and held her hand, swaying from side to side, rocking Elbert in a way he hoped the Kneazle found soothing and not one that would make him throw up. They stayed like that as the storm raged, ignoring the rattling windows and shaking walls, waiting until Elbert calmed down so that they could sit and enjoy a meal together as a family.


End file.
